Commissioner Brooks is Fed Up with Blight

County Commissioner Henri E. Brooks (Top Center) with community leaders.

As a member of City Beautiful I am appalled at the amount of litter that blows down our street, clogs our gutters, and generally turn our beautiful city into a cesspool. Because of this I will be first to praise anyone stepping up to the plate to address this issue. On Friday, November 9th County Commissioner Henri E. Brooks called a meeting of civic based nonprofits and City officials, including Robert Lipscomb who is the City’s “Go to Man” and Judge Larry Potter of the Environmental Court.

Brooks wanted to find out what is being done and what could be done to address the blight that is chocking this City. Many of the nonprofits that were present are involved in housing development and they gave her an ear full. Challenges like getting control of overgrown vacant properties and demolition of abandon houses were on the top of their list. Mr. Lipscomb pointed out that the City had committed $25 million dollars over the next several years to remove thousands of abandon and dangerous houses, but it would benefit all if the County would look at matching these dollars. Representatives from the County government agreed that greater cooperation was needed to deal with blight.

The next day Commissioner Brooks followed that meeting with one at the SMA Citizens’ Center on Bellevue. There she met with neighborhood residents and civic organizations to hear what they felt were the key issues that needed to be address in removing blight from their community. Most agreed that to truly tackle this problem we need to work to change the mind set of some people. Litter is a people problem, created by people. Many in our community don’t care. That is why my nonprofit SMA is presently involved in a campaign called, “Don’t Trash Memphis.” It is an effort to change the behavior of those who have no problem littering in our City.

If there is going to be a real change in the fight on blight we must start by helping to rebuild civicness in our communities. Neighborhood associations were a cherished commodity at one time, now they struggle to survive. Memphis can not move forward without these civic minded citizens. We must reinvest in local civic groups and make them real partners in the growth of Memphis.

11 comments:

Anonymous
said...

She was a great State Representative and she is a great County Commissioner. You go girl!

This is one of the reasons we left Memphis. Filthy, just filthy. I would see people walking down the street and simply toss trash on the ground or people driving in there car toss trash out their window.

Ok, I gave my negative. So now I must offer a suggestion.

The City of Memphis and other organizations need to create a nonblight program. Focus on education and cleanups.

We were faced with the same dilemma but decided to stay in Memphis because our family had grown up here and truthfully we love this City. My wife and I joined the Sierra Club and help with several community clean ups. I feel you can give up or get up and make a difference. I respect your decision, but I wish you would have stayed.

The City of Memphis is launching a massive anti-blight campaign. The nonprofit SMA, Inc., which I am the Executive Director, will be an active participant. The campaign is called, "Clean Memphis NOW!" It will cover the entire city! I will have more information for you soon.

Commissioner Brooks is fed up with blight. I hope she now will include the blight of thugs in our city, seeing that she had her purse snatched the other day. I'm glad she was not harmed, but we need to do more about crime in our city. I think the merger of city and county police forces would be good for everyone. I hope she will support this effort also.

If they want to clean up blight they need to come and tear down all these messed up houses in my neighborhood. There is at least 10 houses that have been empty for years. Dope users are living in them and it is a mess. I am tired of being afraid they need to clean that up first.

Be careful what you wish for. I remember in the 70's here in Memphis when they came and tore down all the old buildings and houses. We called it "scorched earth." They left nothing. We all were happy until we realized they had no plans for coming back to build anything. Those areas stayed vacant for years. What development that did occur was spotty. There was no strategy and it looked that way.

I think the plan was then as it is now to clear these areas at tax payers expense then developers will come in and build houses that poor people can't afford. The City needs to say CLEARLY what are their plans for the area once these houses are torn down. If there is no plan, watch out, we are going to get screwed!!!

If you really want to reduce litter all the City needs to do is put out more trash bins. We have a lot of people walking the streets and if there is no where for them to put their trash they throw it on the grown.